I gather it is because of the act of taking on the responsibility of making a solution fit the problem. In a commercial or consulting role, someone claims to have a solution ( or be capable of creating one) that will solve the problems at hand. When a manager ( especialy within the DoD) gives the okay for a canned solution, the responsibilites are already diluted, meaning that if the solution has already been working for others, it is safe to assume that it will work for your organization. If it fails to do so, the manager can point to the other successful implementations and list the differences between your actual needs and the products capabilities. The vendor can then tailor the app more closely to your needs and the manager still looks good.

If we apply the same standards to Opensource, we can look at established projects like Apache, Mysql or even Openoffice and they are still safe because others are successfully using the software, it is not really a matter of a central point for support. For a manager to okay a more obscure project for implementation means taking on a much greater and unknown responsibility.

They'll change their mind when they go to war with a country that has paid Microsoft more than they have (or a country that Microsoft has purchased). And the entire Defense department falls apart from deeply embedded backdoors that have been sold to the 'enemy'.
Global corporations are just that, they don't owe loyality to any nation or any nation's war machine. The Americans will probably learn this (as they learn everything) the hard way.

In a similar vein, I would believe that all the ultra-high tech weapons that the Americans have sold to their more dubious allies do actually have back-doors that allow the Americans to disable these weapons should they be used against Americans by a country that has had a revolution. This was the lesson of Iran in the late 1970's. Hopefully it will be learned before all the high-tech weapons sold/given to Egypt over the past thirty years are used against the Americans and Israelis after the fall of Murabak's regime and the assendency of an Egyptian Islamic Republic.

I don't think "Insightful" is a strong enough moderation for the parent.

If "partners" are getting the MS source, they can look at it for attack-vectors and re-compile it themselves. What then is the difference between Microsoft and Open Source? Only a few hundred thousand dollars.

What then is the difference between Microsoft and Open Source? Only a few hundred thousand dollars.

No, there is far more then that. When something Microsoft has an error it takes you to a blue screen full of error messages. When Open Source has an error it takes you to a white screen with a flashing underline. See?

The problem is that the modern military has forgotten many of the lessons history taught their predecessors. Rommel was highly regarded, not because he followed some textbook solution or blamed the manufacturer if things went wrong, but because he innovated, experimented and improvised. The same is true of many of the "great" commanders in history - Julius Caesar disarmed the Celtic navy by using hooks on giant poles to rip the sails off. Hannibal got ruddy great elephants over the alps and invented whole new forms of combat. The American revolutionaries created the sniper.

Battles are not won or lost by whoever has the best terms and conditions from the manufacturer. If you're losing, you won't be around to complain, and if you're winning, you generally won't care.

Every time a major power (such as the US) has paid more attention to giving kickbacks to corporate sponsors than it has to producing successful products or successful missions, that power has had its arse well and truly kicked. Sometimes the power wins anyway, but it is not because of its unimaginative and self-serving attitude, it is despite it. It's not very hard to win when you have total land, sea and air supremecy, and can do round-the-clock carpet-bombing campaigns. (But even then, failure of imagination is lethal. Operation Market Garden got slaughtered because of such egotism.)

Personally, I dislike military structures. I find the notion of winning an argument by having the winner define what the argument was to be primitive and tribal. However, if we're going to have such organizations, we might as well make sure they're functional and concious, rather than degenerately repeating every mistake history has ever recorded.

It's strange to me that the article seems to think that it's the open part of OSS that they are wigging out about. When I was in the Army and National Guard, we had numerous heath and welfare inspections. Try telling a Drill Sargeant he can't look at anything he/she wants. Having a high grade security clearance is like living in a fish bowl, they flat out told me every telephone we had acess to was tapped, hows that for open?I wonder how history would have changed if the Trojan Hourse had been covered in gl

I was watching a C-Span panel with US Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff earlier today (rebroadcast from Tuesday 9/12) and he was talking about a lot of things. However, I was very positively struck when he talked about interoperability of first responder radio networks and how it's important that we don't lock ourselves into a proprietary network should the feds mandate a specific system.

He specifically refered to making it an 'open source' setup if we were to mandate specific equipment to avoid vendor lockin.

While I don't follow the open source movement too closely, it's a major reference, from where I see it.

I found this section of TFA thought-provoking: "In the military, leaving tasks unfinished until some indeterminate time in the future is simply not acceptable, especially in cases where life--and accountability--is at stake."

This is in response to Behlendorf's description of FOSS development as organic, relatively unplanned. It frequently doesn't include deadlines, guaranteed results, even release dates.

This takes the focus away from results and puts it back on method. If you use the most efficient develo

What happens if overall foreign-policy strategy, and even discrete military tactics begin revolving around a similar notion: that you use the correct means and you know the ends will be Good Things even if you can't list those Things in advance.

I'd expect you might find that you'd get the same thing that happens in software: most of the time, it's not the best product that "wins", it's the one that's fastest to market and fastest with new features, even crappy, bug-ridden features. If you have a really

It's better to have something that works well when it's ready, than to have a rushed half assed job that's ready much earlier, but doesn't do the job...Especially in the military, would you want hurriedly built planes falling apart over enemy territory?

It's better to have something that works well when it's ready, than to have a rushed half assed job that's ready much earlier, but doesn't do the job...Especially in the military, would you want hurriedly built planes falling apart over enemy territory?

I'd want a program (milspeak for "project") that knows how to limit it's objectives, yet also creates a platform for growth and enhancement.

Thus, if we're on a tight timeline, we'd need a quickly-built airframe that at first is limited (cheap already-existing engines, older model avionics and missiles, etc), but allows easy upgrade to newer faster engines, canards, more capable avionics, misiles and strike capabilities, etc.

This is in response to Behlendorf's description of FOSS development as organic, relatively unplanned. It frequently doesn't include deadlines, guaranteed results, even release dates.

While this is frequently the case, it isn't necessarily the case.

Far too many people think that FOSS is just something you download off the web. Something that someone else creates, but which you, as the customer, have no control over. That choosing an Open Source product is like going to the grocery store, and that you only get to pick whatever products are being offered, and that you otherwise have no say in their design.

However, this isn't necessarily the case. I've spoken to a number of groups on this subject at length, and what a lot of people don't realize is that you can continue to use your existing sources of software, but that you simply have to demand that the developer provide it to you under an Open Source license. That's it. You can still contract out the development work to the companies you're using for custom development. You can still buy from your approved vendors list. The license that the software is provided under is a contractual issue, and thus is something that can be negotiated.

Yes, the vendor may want more money in order to provide their software as OSS. However, if you're a really large corporation or organization (like the US DoD), in generally you'll be able to specify these requirements. Either your vendors meet them, or they don't (in which case you take your business elsewhere). Same as any other requirement specified in the tendering process.

FOSS doesn't have to mean "downloaded from some guys website". For a big organization like the US DoD, this probably isn't terribly desirable (unless the software does exactly what you want, and you can either form a business relationship with the developer, do continued development in-house, or are willing to contract out feature additions and bug fixes to a third party -- this is, after all, the biggest strength of FOSS).

(I wonder what would happen if a really big organization like the US DoD went to Microsoft when it comes time to renew their bulk licensing contract and specified that the software must be licensed as OSS, and in return offered them twice the amount of the previous contract. What would win out? Greed and good business sense, or jealous protection of the code and the loss of a major customer?)

Open Source is about more than just being able to look at and build the source code. It's about the freedom to redistribute the software with your changes at will. It's about being able to hire on whatever development company you desire to enhance and improve the software.

Shared Source is mostly just a rouse to appear open, to try to stave off a migration to more truly open options. Shared Source doesn't really give you much in the way of additional freedoms -- Open Source does (and by Open Source, I am specifically referring to software that is licensed in such a way that it conforms to the Open Source Definition [opensource.org]).

I wonder what would happen if a really big organization like the US DoD went to Microsoft when it comes time to renew their bulk licensing contract and specified that the software must be licensed as OSS, and in return offered them twice the amount of the previous contract. What would win out? Greed and good business sense, or jealous protection of the code and the loss of a major customer?)

What would happen is that MS would quickly get on the phone with their lobbyists and start persuading their captive congressmen to start leaning on the DoD to withdraw the FOSS requirement of the contract, but to keep the price at the same amount.

You have to assume the DoD is both smart and non-corrupt, and the evidence clearly shows that as a gestalt they are neither.

Fair enough in this specific case I suppose -- however, my comments apply to any organization, particularly any large organization (as they have more money, and thus more leverage).

By way of an example, back in 2005 I attended a Health Informatics conference in Toronto, where a colleague of mine asked a panel of self-described "doers" whether or not they had considered Open Source software. I blogged about it here [mac.com]. In essence, they too were treating Open Source software as if it were a product that sat on the shelf, and not as something that you, as a customer, can demand. It is interesting to note that they discussed all sorts of development and partnership problems that OSS could solve for them, however collectively their attitude was pretty much to look for an existing OSS solution to their problems, and when they didn't find one, go to a commercial developer and use whatever license that developer dictated to them.

This is where organizations are going wrong with OSS. There is nothing wrong with using a commercial developer -- just mandate that the development they do for you is licensed under an OSS license. Canada Health Infoway claimed at the time they had $1.8 billion to spend in the field.

And maybe it's just me, but the customer with $1.8 billion should be the one calling the shots. The problem isn't that they lacked the clout -- only that they lacked the knowledge to know what to ask for. They are at the whim of the development companies they contract out (which has bit these people on the butt before -- there have been a number of cases in this field where organizations have spent millions of dollars and spent years having a custom solution developed, only to find that it no longer suits their current needs (which have changed since development began), and/or won't run on their current deployment environment anymore, necessitating scrapping it and starting all over again).

I too have often wondered when the big boys and the industry associations would clue in to their power in this way.Doesn't anyone think that the American Architects Association might have some pull with respect to the license terms for something like autocad? Or for funding a competitor with better terms?

Doesn't anyone think that the American Architects Association might have some pull with respect to the license terms for something like autocad? Or for funding a competitor with better terms?

You are assuming that the AAA would find it in its best interest to have a low cost AutoCAD clone runnign around. First of all, lowering the cost of tools lowers the barriers to entry for new firms. Existing firms might not like that. Next, you're assuming that the tool is a significant cost for their members, worth

"You are assuming that the AAA would find it in its best interest to have a low cost AutoCAD clone runnign around. First of all, lowering the cost of tools lowers the barriers to entry for new firms. Existing firms might not like that. Next, you're assuming that the tool is a significant cost for their members, worth the time and hassle of negotiating with, funding, and supporting a group of OSS programmers. Finally, you're assuming that all of this amounts to more than AutoCAD currently provides to the AAA

You are assuming that the AAA would find it in its best interest to have a low cost AutoCAD clone runnign around.

And you have assumed that for something to be Open Source Software, it must be made available for free to everyone.

This is not the case. If a large organization decides that as part of their purchasing contract specify that all software provided to them be under an Open Source license, this does not require the software developer to make it freely available to anyone and everyone who comes

Vendor X in this case is in no way required to license their software as Open Source to any other entity, and the DoD is not required to put the source code or binaries online for anyone to download. Their only requirement is that if they redistribute the software (say for example they send copies to the Canadian DND for inter-force communications in Afghanistan), they must make the source code available in a standard machine readable format upon request

The problem is that an Open Source project would quickly become a proprietary project anyway. Take, for instance, VISTA (medical records). Yes, it's open source, hell, it was even developed by the government. However, since the VA's mission is decidedly NOT to provide tech support to the rest of the government, other departments that might use that system are left holding the bag to fully support it IN HOUSE, and that includes a metric ass-load of customization.

Where "Open Source" is really competing is in vertical, single-source support and in that department, it usually doesn't have an advantage. It's not that government is averse to using the stuff, it's just that they don't want to end up with something like the VA and VISTA where they have hundreds of full-time developers devoted to keeping it alive. They'd prefer to sign a vendor on to provide it as a service so they can get on with fulfilling their mission, not pretending to be a software development company.

The benefit of open source is that you "own" the code in the sense of having unfettered access to it and can continue developing it even if the original owner ceases to exist. However, owning the responsibility of perpetual development is precisely what government agencies DON'T WANT -- and, frankly, for good reason. They're not software companies and they're very bad at pretending to be so (take a look at the FBI case management system, for instance). When people make the case for open source on those grounds, you've just presented them with the worst nightmare imaginable, so don't be surprised if they scream and run away.

I think you're missing the important thing about open source. Because you have the source, you can hire any number of companies to maintain the source if you don't like one vendor. You can even hire two or three companies to maintain at the same time to provide extra redundancy and provide assurances that no one company is able to push you around.How about closed source? Take the VISTA situation, for instance. If the source code was closed and the company lost interest or went out of business. It would be s

What people really don't seem to understand is the reality that it is often more efficient to replace a system wholesale than get a new group of people who have a year of "learning curve" just to figure out what the hell the existing system is doing.

So, pretend you're a department manager with a million bucks to spend on some piece of software and your vendor just ceased to exist. Your existing application is ten years old and full of bugs. Do you spend your million bucks paying the salaries of ten developers to potentially get you to square one after a year or do you spend a half million bucks on licenses and support for a new package and still keep five in-house developers on to work on the transition?

Most people choose option number two. That's just the reality on the ground, so if you're going to make the open source case, frame it in that context. Don't put all your money on "hey! you've got the code!" -- because that's the least of the worries.

Don't put all your money on "hey! you've got the code!" -- because that's the least of the worries.Ahmen Brother, their worries should be about whether the new rapists will be able to migrate the data on the old rapist's system to satisfy 30 year documentation retention requirements from the FDA! Imagine having to recall all implanted medical systems with a particular lot number and discover that you have to hand audit 50,000 paper medical records because inventory and patent data didn't transfer properly t

The term "free" is an intentional echo of cold war terminology and works for military types. Freedom is what they are all about and they are never supposed to obey an unlawful order. The American ideology of the Cold war carried over from the defeat of the German dictatorship and Japanese Empire but was firmly rooted in American history, writing and law. The core of that ideology is that free, moral people working in honest cooperation and competition are happier and more prosperous than people toiling under centralized dictatorships. Interesting expressions of these ideas can be found in the writing of Robert A. Heinlein, especially Starship Trooper [wikipedia.org], which is recommended reading in the US Marine Corps. Free software is an honest effort to make things work, guided by a free meritocracy. It works and has become best of class because people agree not to screw each other over, standards to modularize their work make it so things are interchangeable and the fittest work survives.

Officers with higher degrees will instantly appreciate the peer review nature of free software. People who have published scientific articles understand first hand the practical requirements of repeatability too. To them, if you can't repeat it yourself you have to take it on faith and no military person wants faith in anything but the almighty when they can have proof instead.

The non free people tried to call free software, "software communism" but failed and may have it thrown back in their face. Any military person will tell you that Communist contries are really nasty little fiefdoms, where who you know is more important than what you know and the top guy is in absolute lawless control of everything until murdered. This more resembles the distrustful, back stabbing and intentionally wasteful world of non free software in methodology and results.

Massive propaganda saying it is wrong to disobey the owners to help your friend.

Solicitation for stool pigeons to inform on their coworkers and colleagues.
Raids (with police help) on offices and schools, in which people are told they must prove they are innocent of illegal copying.

Prosecution (by the US government, at the SPA's request) of people such as MIT's David LaMacchia, not for copying software (he is not accused of copying any), but merely for leaving copying facilities unguarded and failing to censor their use.

All four practices resemble those used in the former Soviet Union, where every copying machine had a guard to prevent forbidden copying, and where individuals had to copy information secretly and pass it from hand to hand as ``samizdat''. There is of course a difference: the motive for information control in the Soviet Union was political; in the US the motive is profit. But it is the actions that affect us, not the motive.

You need more redudancy than just LibertyWare. The redundancy ensures that if someone is unable to comprehend or understand a word in the name or product, the extra, redundant words would help them understand and comprehend the method and way that the word is conveyed and used.

As someone in the military, I can tell you for sure that appearance and impression matters MUCH more then function or realism. It's all about how it looks or how it sounds, not what it does or how well it does it. There's a reason our fighter planes aren't called the Kitty or the Puppy. Heh heh, the F-22 Puppy, that'd be funny.

here's a reason our fighter planes aren't called the Kitty or the Puppy.

At least with that name nobody would dare kick it. Deploy it and all foes would fall upon themselves trying to tickle it under the chin until it started firing. You could certainly build some sort of strategy around that.

I work in a military environment. Recently our computers were transitioned to NMCI. Result: All open source is strictly prohibited. My workspace had designed a really awesome database powered by MySQL and other open source technology. When NMCI came online we were SOL. When we asked for help, we were advised we could spend a $xxx,xxx and purchase a Microsoft SQL Server license instead. When we pushed the issue, we were told that we were welcome to submit MySQL to NMCI for approval but that no one knew how to file the paperwork and no one had ever seen any software approved before. My take: It's a money scam. Somehow NMCI and Microsoft profit from each other with an exclusive agreement.

Before software goes onto NMCI it has to be certified. The certification process is obscure and not well documented, so the people doing the certification clean up--it takes around $30K of contractor work to get the software certified. It's full employment for DoD contractors who know something about NMCI certification.

(...) we could spend a $xxx,xxx and purchase a Microsoft SQL Server license instead. When we pushed the issue, we were told that we were welcome to submit MySQL to NMCI for approval but that no one knew how to file the paperwork and no one had ever seen any software approved before.

Now, in a sane system you would ask "Show me the documentation that is the basis for Microsoft SQL Server's approval, and we'll provide equal documentation." The reason it probably does not work is that the documentation involves

in a sane system you would ask "Show me the documentation that is the basis for Microsoft SQL Server's approval, and we'll provide equal documentation." The reason it probably does not work is that the documentation involves a large check.

a trivial response and lazy.

if you do not understand your own procurement system you are not ready to compete with Microsoft Federal Systems

I know it may sound odd but just to get access to the list of software that is "approved" is a lesson in bureaucratic absurdity; forget actually submitting something to get "approved".What is even more ridiculus is that users had to sign a form saying you would not install any software not on the list - yes, the list you cannot see without significant fortitude in dealing with out-of-control, out-of-touch bureaucracy!

The list is a joke, however. For example most software is approved only at some earlier rel

I know it may sound odd but just to get access to the list of software that is "approved" is a lesson in bureaucratic absurdity; forget actually submitting something to get "approved".

Having gone through the approval process (DoD but not NMCI) to have several programs my company created I feel your pain. Conflicting requirements, forms that even the approving authority weren't sure how to fill out, changing program managers mid stream so you had to renegotiate any exceptions previously agreed upon were onl

Yes, NMCI is Microsoft all the way or it is the highway. It is ironic that an organization that is suppose to protect a market driven economy, freedom and apple pie has taken a centralized (communist) one-size-fits-all anti-competitive monoculture approach to handling its IT.

Not only that the framers of the NMCI contract were apparently unable to distinguish between the needs of word processing secaterial pools, powerpoint obsessed managers, and cutting edge research and development engin

Also, I recall whenever I install Oracle (closed source) I have to click an agreement that I will
not use the software in the design or production of biological, chemical or nuclear
weapons. I've never encountered such a clause when using open source software, so maybe this might be
something that would appeal to the DoD, who I presume would rather not be tracked down by one
of Larry Ellison's hit squads.

1) Liability. Contractors want somebody to sue if something goes wrong. The DoD will blame the contractor.2) Specs. Usually, the system is being developed is meant to replace another system that is in-place. The only things to be changed are what are specced out. This doesn't prevent things from being entirely rewritten, but it usually stays on an existing DoD platform.3) Speaking of platforms, check out the existing specced out platforms. Lots of people go with DIICOE, or GCCS for various reasons. Some might include a desire to get something included as a DIICOE segment, which is profitable, or GCCS, because it's ubiquitous.4) STIGs. If there isn't a STIG written for it, you're going to have a harder time getting approval to operate it on a classified network. Even if all of your major apps are covered, you'll have to get extensions regarding applications that are not covered. Extensions are not intended to be waivers... so, you're only supposed to get an extension if you intend to replace it. It is hard to justify an extension for new software. Why not just write it in a compliant fashion? Because the security audit will be more of a PITA, they avoid any step into the unknown. Some of this is just inertia.5) Security through obscurity. It sounds asinine, but the DoD doesn't rely on security through obscurity.... they rely on anything that is considered a good practice, obscurity is just one of those many practices. It's not that they are using telnet or anything silly like that. It's just that they want as many layers as possible.6) Common open source is embraced. Everyone runs Apache. It's as ubiquitous as IIS. It's the things that are considered more "out there" that aren't.

All of that aside, there have been open source initiatives, but contractors have been reluctant to bite. Reasons vary, but this is the essential dynamic. The DoD retains the rights to most of the source code for projects that they fund, so, they already have the source code... they give it to anybody that they please, including the next contractor to work on the project. Contractors don't want to share source with each other for competitive reasons. Since they're all bidding to produce identical products, giving other contractors the ability to develop experience with a product can only hurt their business, this experience is their primary bargaining chip when bidding (that and the ability to undercut their competitors, or qualify for special considerations, such as being a small business).

Then there is the concern of enabling foreign interests to develop commensurate technologies. Nobody wants to share code to decode IFF signals, or to build similar systems. Thinking that the government would publish code to do these things is just asinine.

You always have your crumudgeons who also will just resist open source... which is the same even outside of DoD interests, but the DoD comes with a host of other concerns. All of these in mind, I'm not sure that the DoD is necessarily stilted against open source. Some sectors of the DoD have embraced it quite readily... these are just the faster-moving sectors who adopt technologies more readily. The DoD is a very large entity, and, as such, slow adoption, when combined with very well established platforms results in this exact behavior.

I must say, I'm really not unhappy with that. In fact, I would dislike it very much if any of my open source contributions would be used by the military (of any country). I even once considered blocking access to my web site from.mil domains. I didn't because it would be completely silly, and there is no reason to block only.mil and let all the other military through. And after all, "open" is "open", and anyway, I have neither the time nor the moral authority to decide who is "good" and who is "bad".

But nevertheless, if the military would rather not use any of my "open" code, it makes me feel better, even if it is not rational.

At least you admit it's not rational. I'm not for a militaristic society, but I'm of the mind that if someone's winding up to punch me in the nose, I have no compunction with hitting him first. I'd rather not wage war, but the fact remains that there are people who are willing to kill Americans because we don't believe the same things they do (no, America isn't immune to this, but the Crusades are the last real recorded Christian "holy war"), and I'd rather not let them.

#include <std_disclaimer.h>Good lord, I actually have something to contribute!

In a nutshell, the DoD *really* doesn't like that they don't know who wrote the software, and they also don't like the lack of a central point of contact. They'd rather hire, say, $defense_contractor to write a similar piece of software, because they get a couple of reassuring beliefs (we will not attempt to discuss the VALIDITY of these beliefs, please):1) that $defense_contractor is using properly trained, vetted programm

How many people have said linux is "killer" software compared to the number of people who have said "Windows will be the death of me"? Export list be damned. We should be promoting Windows to our enemies.

Let's not fool ourselves, open source software takes talented people to run, not the normal graduates of 6-week "learn-computers-fast-to-make-money.com" windows training that is the mainstay of price thrifty contractors that make up the entire backbone of all DOD IT departments. I'm sure there are talented admins in the DOD, I've met some, but they are the exception rather than the rule. "Best and Brightest need not apply"

Nevermind the incorrect capitalization, but does that even mean anything? Yes, this is offtopic, yes this is nitpicking, but seriously: Does that really mean any more than "Smurfing for government computer wews"? Personally I think "grofling for news" sounds cooler, not to mention it's one step ahead of being branded "hip" in that negative way.

Anyway, I stopped reading right there. So the comments here may be gibberish and all non-sense, but can't we at least expect the summaries to be in semi-proper en

Sadly, this is a fallicy that is widespread in people who are clueless about security. Take a closed source product from Microsoft for example. How many people within MS have access to that code? How many still work for MS? How many outside the US both have had access to the code and no longer work for MS?How many are pissed that they were fired or laid off?

You have to look at security as a cost v. reward thing. It may be very expensive to obtain and reverse engineer a binary program which is used as part of a security system. But if it uses "Security through obscurity", you only have to do it once. If you use a real security system, it has to be cracked every time the keys change.

"When the source code is available to everyone, that also means that it's easier for the enemy to find security holes to exploit."Security through obscurity" isn't a bad thing. If you can manage to keep tight control over who has access to the source code, you've eliminated one more security issue. Obviously, the quality of the code is more important. But still."

Only on Slashdot would this be modded as flamebait. Use some logic people! Open source does not necessarely equal more secure. It often can, but it

I still don't understand why this whole "Security through obscurity is evil!" sound biteit's not that "Security through obscurity" is evil, it's that a lot of people who claim "Security through obscurity" are really using obsurity to "secure" shoddy and insecure coding practices. There's been more than once I've been tempted to release a small scratch my own itch project to the community, then thought I'd hold off until I've had a chance to clean-up the code, which never happened. When you know that your wo

This isn't true.Even if they alter, extend, or otherwise change a piece of GPL software, the source is only open if they're distributing the software. If they're only using it in-house, or only distributing to trusted recipients, then there's no issue. As far as i know, you can't file freedom of information act requests for pieces of software:P Just cause you can't sell a piece of software, doesn't mean that they have to give it away to whomever asks (although from the discussions of GPL 3, it sounds li

As far as i know, you can't file freedom of information act requests for pieces of software:P

Why not? Are you sure about this? Works of the federal government are automatically in the public domain. If they create a work of code, and it is recorded by a federal agency, it is public domain and should be available for request.

Unfortunately i don't have time to properly research this at the moment, so i'm going to be irresponsible and simply quote the first thing [dod.mil] i have come across that looks definitive:

What is a record?
A record is the product(s) of data compilation, such as all books, papers, maps, and
photographs, machine readable materials, inclusive of those in electronic form or
format, or other documentary materials, regardless of physical form or characteris-
tics, made or received by an agency of the United States Gov

I agree that it doesn't categorically apply to all software in use by the government. In fact, most software would not be covered because the agency didn't create it. But if the agency is itself producing the software, then the software is itself a data output from their operations and I would argue that it is covered by the above provisions.

There is a "For Official Use Only" category that is unclassified, but only for official government use (in case you couldn't figure that one out). The software written where I work will not be given out to the public because of this status, nor would anyone really have a want for it.

Most governments, including China, have access to the Microsoft Windows source code. This means that the enemy-of-the-week probably has it too. From a military perspective, that means that the product is 'totally open for all the worlds [sic] eyes and ears to see'. And it doesn't exactly have a great security record...

I worked on a secret level access facility for the Air Force a few years ago. There were two computer systems. All classified materials were to go on the Sun network. Cables had to be mounted below the ceiling, where they could be visually inspected constantly, etc. The Microsoft boxes were limited to personal use only. Yes, Microsoft has a security level approval (pretty much granted by Congress over protest.) But, if you read it, there are all kinds of limitations. No network connections allowed, no remov

I agree. The Military strictly operates on a "The buck stops here" principle. They need to pin the blame on someone, and they get upset when they find they can't throw an Oracle or a MSFT guy into the barrel as Tank Shell.

Maybe if IBM guarantees and puts its mouth on line to support Ubuntu or even Firefox, then we would see a massive increase in usage and adoption.

That is why the military doesn't take suggestions for weapons from anonymous people and instead outsources it to Lockheed or Martin even though